Year: 2008

Hello faithful readers! I just wanted to say that Maven and Motley will be on hiatus through the month of November 2008. I will be on vacation and Maven and Motley will be coming with me :-). I’ll try and get one more post in before I leave, but no promises. In the meantime, please…

Summary Motley: All developers have the same personality type – introverted and logically-minded. A personality test for a developer would be a waste of time. Maven: Build a diversified team with different personality types; learn what type of personality each person has as everyone is different, and break down communication barriers with this…

Summary Motley: Developing international software is really, really hard. We need brand new binaries to ship in other languages. Maven: Follow these tips when developing for international markets: design for one worldwide binary, ensure the software is globalized, do not build strings at run-time, expand UI labels by 40%, and test with pseudolocalized…

Summary Motley: I must conform to the wishes of the management team, even if they are wrong. I need permission to modify the organization-wide processes. Maven: Sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Break the rules if it is best for the team, then say “sorry”. Be accountable for results,…

Summary Motley: A tester’s job is to find bugs, so measure them on the amount of bugs they find. More test automation is always better. Maven: Do not measure testers by the amount of bugs they report. Think of the test team as more a quality assurance team than a quality control team….

Motley: James, that slacker, is not in the office again. That guy spends so much time outside of work that it’s a wonder we pay him. Maven: Well, everyone is entitled to a bit of vacation now and then, don’t you think? Motley: If that’s what you want to call it. Maven: Actually, this time…

Summary Motley: Use Scrum in my personal relationships? Don’t be such a geek. Maven: You can apply the same lessons as Scrum teaches to your personal relationships – lots of communication, planning, iteration, and retrospectives focusing on continuous improvement. Just translate the really hard stuff (relationships) to the what we geeks understand. ______________________________…

Summary Motley: Features sell a product. When in doubt, add more features! Maven: These days, software is less about features and more about reliability, fit ‘n finish, performance, and usability. Use the Kano model to help you focus on the right scenarios for the user. ______________________________ [Context: Motley is struggling with a…

Summary Motley: Milestones are useless for agile development. Our feature team can ship at the end of every iteration, so milestones have no value for us. Maven: Milestones provide a synchronization point across a set of features, helping to ensure the overall product is of high quality. Every milestone has a set of…